Quibi - The New Netflix

Updated: Sep 15, 2019

You soon might be canceling your Netflix subscriptions. Here's why.

Written by Myles Shin

Illustration by Vibhu Venkatesh

Netflix, watch out. For the past half-decade or so, Netflix has been the go-to streaming platform for many people. Everything is online, you can download movies, and there is a wide variety of content. Or rather was. Now, all of these big companies that originally licensed their products to Netflix are starting their own streaming services, leaving Netflix with nothing more than their own Netflix originals.

This is where Quibi steps in. Quibi was created by Jeffrey Katzenberg and is the future of mobile-only streaming service set to launch April 6, 2020. With over 1 billion dollars invested into the company by entertainment giants like Sony and NBC, they have everything they need to dethrone the king of streaming. Quibi already, over 6 months before its launch, has 100 million dollars in ad contracts for the first year alone.

How is Quibi going to work? It is going to be a $5 a month streaming service (with ads) or premium $8 a month with no ads. Quibi already has huge, influential content creators lined up, including Steven Spielberg and Anna Kendrick. With all of the funding and companies partnered with Quibi already, it is bound to be a success. You may not have heard of Quibi now, but just wait a year or two until it is everywhere.

Personally, I don’t have any streaming subscriptions; I still have cable and get lots of my entertainment from YouTube. I still do watch Hulu, Xfinity, and Netflix through my sister’s account so I do see how Quibi can shake up the market. With all of these new streaming services now having to rely on their own original content, Quibi might be the forerunner. Does Netflix have Spielberg? No. What about Stephen Curry? No. Quibi’s plan of making quick and consumable content is perfect for my generation and targets our shorter attention span and I think it has enormous potential for becoming a huge success.